


To save the hostas

by hungerpunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/pseuds/hungerpunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He doesn't suppose many people would look at either him or Zayn and think <i>gardeners</i>." Or, Zayn takes up gardening in his time off and Niall follows suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To save the hostas

**Author's Note:**

> i don't actually know that much about gardening.
> 
> many thanks to [p of hostagesfic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/) and [gina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/castoffstarter) for the encouragement, and to [lindsay](http://lindybot.tumblr.com/) for the beta ♥

Zayn is notorious for being “unreachable as usual,” as Louis put it, during breaks from band life. Niall would say that’s a slight exaggeration, and then he realizes he’s lying to himself when one, two, three of his texts in a row get no response and there’s been zero social media activity from Zayn in weeks. Niall gives up the pretense and decides to just drive over to Zayn’s, see what’s up, have a brew with one of the Riach brothers if Zayn’s not in. 

Niall goes over and ends up finding him kneeling in the dirt of his front lawn, cursing. Zayn looks up when Niall's shadow falls over him; his cheeks are smudged with soil, and his hair is soft and falling into his face, and he's got hot pink gardening gloves on, a wee spade gripped in one hand. He narrows his eyes against the sun and purses his lips. Niall just raises his eyebrows, smiles wide and waits.

Eventually Zayn says, "I'm at war with the rabbits." He points to what looks like the remnants of a plant, gnawed down to the base of the stalk. 

Niall nods, accompanied by a short burst of laughter. "Hate rabbits. Pointless. Do nothing."

Zayn grumbles as he stands up, leaning on Niall's shoulder for a moment as he surveys the garden. "You're gonna help me plant some marigolds," he says after a pause.

"I am?" Niall asks.

"To save the hostas," Zayn answers. It's like he's speaking a different language, but Niall agrees anyway.

It turns out marigolds are quite cute, in Niall's opinion, though Zayn isn't their biggest fan. 

"Wouldn't want 'em, they smell so bad, except for how they keep pests away," he explains as they stagger orange marigolds between the ravaged hostas. Niall picks up a fallen bud and tucks it behind Zayn's ear, bright against his dark hair. Zayn wrinkles his nose, but leaves it for the rest of the afternoon.

Niall comes over the next week and the hostas have doubled in size. "The marigolds really worked," Niall says, proud to have remembered the name.

"Yeah. They're growing on me as well," Zayn says. "No pun intended." 

Zayn takes Niall around back and shows him the thick thrushes of rosemary he's growing. "Smell this," he commands, shoving the potted plant in Niall's face. Niall takes a deep breath and has to admit it's rather pleasant. "I've got to get it into the kitchen so Danny can use it," Zayn mutters.

That's how Niall ends up staying over for dinner after pruning and gathering herbs all afternoon. Danny roasts a chicken and some baby carrots, boils some corn on the cob, and leaves Ant in charge of making mashed potatoes—all seasoned with things Zayn’s grown.

It becomes a bit of a thing, helping Zayn garden. Every few days, he'll trundle over to Zayn's mid-morning, after he's properly woken and had a fry up, of course.

"I think this will be good for steeping," Zayn says, snipping a leaf off a mint plant and sticking half of it in his mouth. He squints in critical thought as he tastes, then nods. "Yeah, wow. That's pungent."

"Pungent?" Niall mouths, amused. 

Zayn stuffs the other half of the leaf into Niall’s mouth savagely. "The furry mint is definitely for tea," Zayn says, ignoring Niall's choking cough-laughs to point at the plant. "But the, um, not-furry mint, that will be for salads and stuff."

"Okay," Niall says, spitting out the mangled leaf, because it's whatever Zayn wants. Niall hardly has an opinion. He moves the mint plants according to Zayn's directions and moves on. 

Zayn teaches Niall the difference between top soil and potting soil, healthy dirt and scrap dirt, weed and wildflower, and Niall doesn't quite understand how he found all of this out himself. 

That is, until one day when Niall's pulling weeds from around the rose bushes, planted beneath a set of windows. 

Zayn rounds the corner, wiping soil on his jeans, and stops next to Niall to yell up at said windows, "Ant!" He waits a tick, but there's no response. "Anthony!" Zayn calls again, and this time a soft white noise that Niall hadn't been paying attention to goes suddenly quiet, and Ant appears in the window frame, a can of spray paint in hand. Niall realizes in a snap that he must be gardening right outside the art studio Niall knows Ant’s got somewhere in that massive house. 

"Yeah mate?"

"Can you Google how to revive a hanging geranium that's, erm, not hanging?"

"'Course," Ant answers, setting the can down at the sill and waving to Niall before turning around and disappearing. Zayn makes sure Niall's doing okay before retreating to the backyard.

A few minutes pass and then Niall's name's being called; he looks up to see Ant leaning in the window. "Can you tell him, I dunno," Ant's got his laptop cradled in the crook of one elbow, "this site says to clip everything back a bit? Like, a third. And uh. Clip everything that's yellow totally off. And re-pot it. And bring it inside for a few days?" He looks down at Niall and shrugs. "Somethin' like that." 

Niall salutes him and wanders off, a budding hunch that Zayn becoming a master gardener has been down to Google all the while. 

Two weeks later Niall's making a pit stop at the hardware store to purchase his own pair of shears. He picks a neon blue pair and tries to refrain from making fun of himself at the checkout, tells himself that it's tranquil, is what it is. Being outside, being in the dirt. Sometimes he's shoulder to shoulder with Zayn at Zayn's makeshift potting station, chattering and joking and even singing sometimes, to the flowers, though they'd both deny it. But sometimes he's by himself too, tending something Zayn's entrusted him to do, humming to himself and listening to the surrounding quiet while the sunshine soaks into his neck and back. 

He likes it, and he's not sure why. He doesn't suppose many people would look at either him or Zayn and think _gardeners_. But for some reason, the most satisfying part of his day starts to be when Zayn thunks a pot down in front of him and says, "Okay, we gotta help this guy out." Niall never thought performing plant surgery would be a thing he counted as a relaxation technique, but he’s not too opposed to the idea. "The rhubarb's coming back strong," and "Look at that onion, gettin' brave," and "Do you think that's too much purple for one flower box?" turn his days pleasantly long, getting his hands absolutely filthy with soil, caked dense under his fingernails and in the creases of his palms. Niall loves it, attuned to something intangible and natural.

They never actually discuss the fact that it’s official, really. Niall never asks, “So. Gardening?” And Zayn never offers any explanation. Niall figures he could technically ask Danny or Ant and get the story, but if it’s not coming from Zayn’s lips, Niall wouldn’t want it anyway. 

Likewise, Zayn never makes a fuss about Niall’s sudden investment—it’s all a quiet operation, truthfully. Niall finds he doesn’t mind; likes this _thing_ they have together that the rest of the world, for once, isn’t in on. And somehow, an unspoken agreement flourishes between them, to not tell the other boys about it. Which goes according to plan, mostly, except—

“What are you two doing all the time?” Louis asks over the phone.

“Just hangin’ out,” Niall answers, shrugging even though Louis can’t see him.

And then, “ _Just hanging out,_ huh?” Louis asks when he shows up at Zayn’s unannounced one day to find them spraying soap water over the basil plants—to combat spider mites, of course—and crooning playfully to them. 

“Ah, shit,” Niall gasps, whirling around, bursting into laughter when he sees Louis. “You’ve caught us, then.”

“Indeed,” Louis smirks. “It would help if either of you would ever answer your bloody phones these days. Then I wouldn’t have to trek all the way over here in person.”

“Sorry, Lou,” Zayn apologizes, actually sounding remorseful, rubbing the back of his neck.

Louis waves his hand and pushes off from where he’s leaning on the gate to the yard. “C’mon then, I’m dying for a bite to eat.” He doesn’t set a foot in the garden, like maybe he gets it. Zayn and Niall usher him into the house, and just like that, it remains their hallowed ground. 

They're attempting to place some tricky peonies—"They're gonna be rock stars," Zayn says. "Wanna give 'em prime real estate."—when Danny comes out with a jug of lemonade and two ice-filled glasses. 

"Taking a break from grading," Danny says. "Wanted to see how you boys were doing." They accept the lemonade with grateful cheers and Niall chatters amicably with Danny about his teaching position at the depot.

"Is it easy?" he asks. "To grade art?"

Danny shrugs, runs a finger around the lip of the lemonade pitcher, picking up bitter drops, and then sucks the tip into his mouth. "I mean, yes and no. It's hard 'cause not all of them have, like, an intuitive sense of composition or color, like some. So you have to keep real objective. But then there's just obviously kids who didn't do theirs til last minute, that's easy to spot. It's cool, though. To see 'em come into their own." Niall finds himself nodding, thinking about the rose bushes outside Ant’s studio windows that have started to bloom.

Sometimes, when Niall’s plucking fallen maple seeds out of all of the plants, or raking dandelion fur away, he’ll pause and simply watch Zayn. He doesn’t mean to be creepy, he just can’t help it. Zayn is nearly hypnotizing in his clear serenity; easily lifting plants for inspection and tenderly trimming and spritzing them with a familiarity as if he remembers every single plant since he settled their seeds in the soil. Which, Niall knows for a fact, he does. It’s paternal, and cherished, Zayn’s interactions with his plants, and it’s a wondrous sight. So sue Niall if he likes to sit back and behold him sometimes.

He becomes a bit of a regular fixture about the Malik-Riach household. Danny's got a full plate without tending to a garden, and Ant hasn't got the temper for it, so Zayn's always happy to see Niall come swinging through his garden gate, several days a week. Unless it rains, they end up outside all day together, so it's the least Zayn can do to offer Niall dinner. Except that it's hardly Zayn's to be offering, when Danny and Ant do all the cooking, but nobody minds Niall's easy grins at the dinner table, especially when he's dosing out sincere compliments to the chef every few minutes. 

Of course, dinner can't be had without dessert, and dessert is best served with a bit of telly, and more often than not Niall finds himself dozing on their couch, heavily sedated from the good eating. Whenever he manages to shake himself awake, he rises and bids adieu, clapping Zayn on the shoulder, departing to a chorus of soft, fond farewells.

The first time the sun really comes out, Niall gets burned to a crisp. He asks Danny if he’s got any aloe vera but Danny just grimaces. “Sorry, mate. Never really... been sunburned before.” Niall curses and looks so miserable that Danny drives to Tesco and comes back with two different kinds.

Niall gingerly peels his admittedly flimsy tank top off and winces as Zayn smears the aloe all over his back. Ant shoves some ibuprofen at him. “I Googled it. Helps with pain and stuff.” Niall frowns guiltily over causing a scene but takes the pills gratefully.

He’s marginally cheered when dessert turns out to be fudgesicles that Danny made himself. “Obsessed with Pinterest, that one,” Ant stage-whispers and gets a mean thwack upside the back of his head from Danny for it. 

“Pipe down, BuzzFeed,” Danny grumbles. Ant squawks. Niall smiles and compliments Danny’s fudgesicles and Danny looks pleased in spite of himself. Zayn nudges an elbow gently against Niall’s ribs from where he’s sat beside him and when Niall looks, he winks, a bemused grin on his lips as he nibbles around his own fudgesicle. Niall feels it, then, for the first time: the way he fits. 

One day after a particularly frustrating struggle with a row of hydrangeas, followed by a significantly more enjoyable meal of chutney chicken samosas and a chocolate mousse dessert, Niall drops helplessly into a deep sleep almost the instant they settle in to watch _Top Gear_. When he wakes, the sun's gone down behind the blinds and Zayn's asleep on his shoulder. Niall blinks, rubs his eyes, and begins to shift, but then a hand comes down to squeeze his other shoulder. 

It's Danny, peering at Niall from the other side of the couch. "Don't wake 'em," he whispers. "They hardly sleep." Niall realizes that Ant is also knocked out, drooped over and curled into Danny's side. Niall’s attention lights fleetingly on the circles under Danny’s eyes and wants to ask if he ever sleeps, either, but he’s not quick enough. "Just stay," Danny’s saying. Niall raises his eyebrows in question, and Danny smiles, small but kind. "I'll make pancakes in the morning."

Niall smiles back, full-blown and genuine. "What kind?" he jokes. 

"Strawberry. Or blueberry. Or whatever else is out there," Danny answers, and Niall thinks proudly of the berries they've been coaxing out over the past month. He's been singing to them more than any of the other plants—not that Zayn knows or Zayn would throw a fit over how the meek tomatoes need equal TLC.

"Deal," Niall giggles, breathy and quiet in attempt to not wake anybody up. Danny flashes him a thumbs up and Niall closes his eyes, drops his head on top of Zayn's gently, and drifts back to sleep.


End file.
